Strong gun laws led to safer country

[Geoarrge]

Fewer guns mean fewer shootings, but more stabbings, beatings, and sexual assaults. If enabling rapists is an acceptable price to pay for stopping the occasional shooting spree, it's not a position I'd be comfortable with, but I understand it.

[Tom Wetmore]

Simple reality check. If you are confronted with a bad guy, which would you prefer him to be armed with, a gun or a knife? With which one are you going to have a better chance of coming out alive?  The simple reality is that with a gun, especially an automatic with a large clip, more people will die or be seriously injured in a dramatically shorter time at the hands of an angry or deranged person, than if he has only a knife.   With simple self defense training a person has a far better chance of disarming a man with a knife,  or escaping, without significant injury to anyone than if the attacker is armed with a gun.  

[Rossw]

Japanese knife attack that killed 19 people.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/07/26/asia/japan-knife-attack/index.html?client=ms-android-verizon

5 hours ago, Tom Wetmore said:

Simple reality check. If you are confronted with a bad guy, which would you prefer him to be armed with, a gun or a knife? With which one are you going to have a better chance of coming out alive?  The simple reality is that with a gun, especially an automatic with a large clip, more people will die or be seriously injured in a dramatically shorter time at the hands of an angry or deranged person, than if he has only a knife.   With simple self defense training a person has a far better chance of disarming a man with a knife,  or escaping, without significant injury to anyone than if the attacker is armed with a gun.  

Simple reality check?....why do only criminals get the option of a gun or knife? That is the mindset of those who want us to remain the victim.

[CoAspen]

FTU.......People in Japan were unable to defend themselves due to their own disabilities, apples and oranges.

[bonnie]

50 minutes ago, CoAspen said:

FTU.......People in Japan were unable to defend themselves due to their own disabilities, apples and oranges.

So what would all of you suggest as a way to keep criminals and nut cases from obtaining weapons? Same  laws we use for selling meth or heroin? Or the same laws we use for drunk drivers? Which of these are effective in stopping those who really aren't concerned with laws. I haven't looked it up but I would guess both examples cause more deaths than the infrequent mass killings. 

Which of the laws that we have in the US prevent criminals from selling drugs,child abuse etc. It is pretty effective to keep the law abiding in line

[Rossw]

1 hour ago, CoAspen said:

FTU.......People in Japan were unable to defend themselves due to their own disabilities, apples and oranges.

Irrelevant. It isn't apples to oranges. Victims are victims whether they are disabled or not.

[lazarus]

Only 5 police shot and killed in UK during the last 11 years. 1 stabbed. Surprisingly low numbers I thought. Factoring in the differences in population. Why such a vast difference between the experience of UK and American police?

[Green Cochoa]

Before the late nineteen eighties, mass shootings and acts of senseless violence were relatively unheard of.  Prozac, the most well known SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant, was not yet on the market.  When Prozac did arrive, it was marketed as a panacea for depression which resulted in huge profits for its manufacturer Eli Lilly. Of course other drug companies had to create their own cash cow and followed suit by marketing their own SSRI antidepressants.

Subsequently, mass shootings and other violent incidents started to be reported.  More often than not, the common denominator was that the shooters were on an antidepressant, or withdrawing from one.  This is not about an isolated incident or two but numerous shootings.  The question is, during the past twenty years is the use of antidepressants here a coincidence or a causation?  

There have been too many mass shootings for it just to be a coincidence.  Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School.   Eric was on Luvox, an antidepressant.  The Virginia Tech shooter killed thirty-two people and he was on an antidepressant.  While withdrawing from Prozac, Kip Kinkel murdered his mother and stepmother.  He then shot twenty-two classmates and killed two.  Jason Hoffman wounded five at his high school while he was on Effexor, also an antidepressant.  James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado movie theater this past summer and killed twelve people and wounded fifty-eight.  He was under the care of a psychiatrist but no information has been released as to what drug he must have been on. 

Psychiatrists generally will tell you that these people were mentally ill and they weren’t treated in time or didn’t get enough help to prevent the tragedy. However, Dr. Peter Breggin, who is a psychiatrist, stated that depression rarely leads to violence and that it’s only since the SSRI’s came on the market that such mass shootings have taken place.  

In a study of thirty-one drugs that are disproportionately linked to reports of violence toward others, five of the top ten are antidepressants.  These are Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, Effexor and Pristiq.  Two other drugs that are for treating ADHD are also in the top ten which means these are being given to children who could then become violent.  One could conclude from this study alone that antidepressants cause both suicidal thoughts and violent behavior.  This is a prescription for mass shootings.  

No one can talk their way out of explaining how a person who is previously non-violent and given antidepressants suddenly becomes violent or suicidal.  There are multiple cases of children who have committed suicide days after starting to take an antidepressant.  In a YouTube video, various parents tell their story about what the antidepressants did to their kids.

A parent retells how his child couldn’t stand how the drugs made him feel and so he committed suicide.  Another parent is stuck with the image of his child running in front of a moving car because the child wanted to die.  Imagine calling 911 because your child is trying to kill herself when you know your child was not like that before taking the antidepressant.  Imagine what you would feel like upon finding out that your child is the shooter in a murderous rampage on the school campus.

While on a mix of antidepressants, sixteen year old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to school and held twenty-three students hostage.  His father said he was not a violent kid before he took the drugs but while on the medication he was volatile and susceptible to blind rage.  Cory does not remember anything other than waking up, not feeling so well and going back to bed.  The next thing he remembered was being in juvenile detention.  Luckily no one was hurt, but it could have become another mass shooting.

A Harvard psychiatrist closely monitors his patients as he has seen firsthand that those that were not suicidal before became agitated, restless and completely preoccupied with suicidal thoughts.  When these patients were taken off the drug, the thoughts went away.  Clearly this demonstrates it’s the drugs causing these violent feelings, not the mental health of the patient.

They claim that these drugs are safe and effective but obviously they aren’t.  Doctors themselves may not be aware of the dangers of these drugs, but their patients are the ones who will suffer the consequences if they are not told of the potentially lethal side effects.  Doctors should at the very least go over the FDA Black Box warning which is on all antidepressants.  This warning states that there is an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior by taking the drug.  Otherwise, doctors are pretty much pulling the trigger themselves so-to-speak.

The worst part is we are all being misled with false information in regards to “mental illness.”  Given the fact that there is not a single diagnostic test for depression or any other “mental disorder,” how can one even attempt to diagnose a “mental disorder” without a shred of scientific evidence to back it up?  Opinions about symptoms are not science!  There is the “chemical brain imbalance” theory, but where is the science to prove it exists?  

The point is you can’t prescribe an antidepressant or any other psychiatric drug when you don’t know the cause of the symptoms.  Nothing ever gets treated, helped or fixed without a cause.  Instead, mind-altering drugs are being given to our future generation for no sensible or logical reason other than profits for pharmaceutical companies.  The only result is dead bodies from mass shootings and that is truly senseless.  Check it out for yourself and watch the YouTube video.  Check out the list of school incidents linked to SSRIs below.  Ensure your children are safe!

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/02/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence.aspx

http://ssristories.com/index.php?p=school

--------------------

All of the above was from: http://www.cchrflorida.org/antidepressants-are-a-prescription-for-mass-shootings/

 

I think we need to start seriously holding the drug makers to account.  America is perhaps the most drug-using country in the world, hence its disproportionate statistics on violence like this.  Perhaps we could make a case for saying "guns don't kill, drugs do."

Some other links to document the drug connections with the mass shootings:

http://www.naturalnews.com/039752_mass_shootings_psychiatric_drugs_antidepressants.html

https://ssristories.org/category/violence/spree-shooting-stabbing-attack/

The above link provides a list of links to actual news stories following mass-murder type events that are linked to the SSRIs.

[lazarus]

If I remember correctly most developed countries across the world have seen a corresponding rise in the use of SSRI's but have not see the same rise in mass killings with guns or other weapons. Drugs are definitely a factor but it would be obvious that gun availability is critical here.

[Green Cochoa]

40 minutes ago, lazarus said:

If I remember correctly most developed countries across the world have seen a corresponding rise in the use of SSRI's but have not see the same rise in mass killings with guns or other weapons. Drugs are definitely a factor but it would be obvious that gun availability is critical here.

America tops the list in antidepressant use, according to statistics.  11% of Americans over the age of 12 take one.

As the saying goes, "don't drink and drive."  Shall we take away the cars or the drink?

[bonnie]

38 minutes ago, Green Cochoa said:

America tops the list in antidepressant use, according to statistics.  11% of Americans over the age of 12 take one.

As the saying goes, "don't drink and drive."  Shall we take away the cars or the drink?

The availability of guns is far less now than a couple of decades ago. Every teenage boy that lived in the country had at least one. The father's of these boys also had guns. Guns were  as common in the back of pickups as a spare tire. No one locked them in a safe. 

Anyone could walk into the local hardware store and buy one. 

[lazarus]

51 minutes ago, Green Cochoa said:

America tops the list in antidepressant use, according to statistics.  11% of Americans over the age of 12 take one.

As the saying goes, "don't drink and drive."  Shall we take away the cars or the drink?

Iceland is a very close second, then Australia. If what you are suggesting is true then they should have a comparably high number of mass killings. Right?

[Green Cochoa]

1 hour ago, lazarus said:

Iceland is a very close second, then Australia. If what you are suggesting is true then they should have a comparably high number of mass killings. Right?

Well, I would be a foolish scientist to look at a single variable in isolation and assume that no other variables mattered.

[lazarus]

10 hours ago, Green Cochoa said:

Well, I would be a foolish scientist to look at a single variable in isolation and assume that no other variables mattered.

Aren't you suggesting that we pay the most attention to the SSRI variable? Is the correlation between SSRI's and mass killings the highest among all the variables? I saw a paper that said gun availability and gun deaths had an r of .72. I'm NOT a scientist but this seems quite strong. 

[Rossw]

1 hour ago, lazarus said:

 I saw a paper that said gun availability and gun deaths had an r of .72. I'm NOT a scientist but this seems quite strong. 

Lol

[lazarus]

Correlation coefficients can be amusing sometimes I guess. 

[Rossw]

4 hours ago, lazarus said:

Correlation coefficients can be amusing sometimes I guess. 

Sorry if I came across as brash. It just seemed the correlation coefficient is fairly obvious but the secondary causes may not be so obvious. If guns are easily available over a long period of time but statistics on violence fluctuates we should look into secondary causes more carefully.

If guns didn't exist, gun violence wouldn't exist, but murder would still happen wouldn't it? If guns vanished all of a sudden would statistics on violence by knives increase?...very likely.

I don't see the world as having a gun problem but a murder problem.

[lazarus]

On 7/29/2016 at 10:00 PM, Rossw said:

Sorry if I came across as brash.

It's cool. I didn't take it negatively.

Quote

It just seemed the correlation coefficient is fairly obvious but the secondary causes may not be so obvious.

Agreed, but there are some folks who won't even concede that obvious point. This is a complex and difficult issue but no progress can be made in finding solutions if the obvious cannot be acknowledged. Of course SSRI's a significant factor but the variable that stands out is the number and type of guns that are available in the USA.

Quote

 If guns vanished all of a sudden would statistics on violence by knives increase?

Yes, of course.

There's a reason why soldiers are primarily equipped with guns. Guns are more efficient killing machines. If the Orlando shooter had a knife it would be safe to say he wouldn't have been so "effective".

[Geoarrge]

Considering advancements in 3D printing it seems unlikely that attempting to control people's access to weapons will remain very effective in the future.

[Rossw]

Add Lowe's and Home Depot to the preceding post.

[Guest guest]

On 7/24/2016 at 8:35 AM, David Geelan said:

Lots of opinions from right-wingers in those articles, and 'statistics' from right-wing think tanks, very few or no credible research reports from credible researchers.

Of course there are many factors beyond guns! My claim is not that guns and gun laws are the sole factor: that would be a foolish claim, easily debunked. You seem to keep trying to debunk that claim, but it's not the claim I'm making.

My claim is that, given humans and humanity and all our violent impulses, and all the other factors of ideology and media and poverty and mental illness, that, all other things being equal, the same human situation with fewer assault weapons and handguns in it will lead to fewer shootings than with many assault weapons and handguns.

That claim is really very simple and obvious. If there were zero guns in a situation, there would be zero shootings. If there were infinite guns, there would not be infinite shootings. Between those two extremes, my claim is simply that fewer guns will in general mean fewer shootings.

The Munich shootings where guns are harder to get does not debunk that: there will always be ways and always be some incidents. I'm talking about reducing the number, not creating a utopia on earth.

The fact it's possible to kill someone with a knife or a rock also doesn't debunk that. In general, fewer guns in an environment will lead to fewer shootings. If that environment is a violent one, it might be fewer compared to a high baseline... but what's the appropriate comparison is between *that* environment with more and fewer guns, not between that environment and a completely different one. It's completely unsurprising that Chicago and Wyoming have different rates of violent crime, for reasons largely unrelated to the incidence of guns or gun control.

It's a complex argument that needs a sophisticated approach to making reasonable comparisons of like with like... but as I said above, it's really a very simple concept: all other things being equal, fewer guns means fewer shootings.

I was not going to respond this way to this post, but after thinking about it since I was here last I changed my mind.

This thread started with the assertion that the gun law changed all the behavior.  Nothing, until I spoke up, was ever said by any of the anti-gun people here about other contributing societal factors.  So, when I spoke out about how there was no actual proof that the gun laws alone were the cause in the reduction in mass shootings what happened?  You came out and said that you never made that claim.  I disagree.  If had not you would have been pointing out other possible factors that could lead to the same result all along in this thread.  All anti-gun people on this did exactly the same thing.  The only reason you even admitted that there are almost certainly other factors affecting this, and that there is no real research to "prove" the assertions that have been made here is because you were forced to.    

The fact that all kinds of other societal violence increased says that the mass shootings reduction may very well be an outlier completely unrelated to gun laws.   Without solid evidence and research there is no way to prove this one way or the other. 

All the anti-gun people here, as a whole, have done is assume something that you desperately want to believe in is true.  There is zero evidence to support your assumptions.

[CoAspen]

And turn about....

Quote

There is zero evidence to support your assumptions.

 

[Bravus]

The world is not simple. Very few propositions in social science - I'd go so far as to say none - can be proved beyond all shadow of a doubt. 

These arguments were used to keep on selling and advertising cigarettes for decades after there was enough evidence on the balance of probabilities to know that they were killing people.

There is sufficient evidence, on the latter standard, to support the idea that reducing the number of guns in a society reduces the number of mass shootings. And that's enough for me.

[Bravus]

I did a bit of a dig - it may even be earlier in this thread - and I think there was one case in which a 'good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun'.

This is in the context of hundreds of mass shootings.

It's the most common argument used to support having guns, but it is overwhelmingly a fantasy rather than anything supported by any evidence at all.

There are more cases of unarmed 'good guys' stopped shooters than of armed ones.

[Guest guest]

On 8/3/2016 at 2:15 AM, David Geelan said:

I did a bit of a dig - it may even be earlier in this thread - and I think there was one case in which a 'good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun'.

This is in the context of hundreds of mass shootings.

It's the most common argument used to support having guns, but it is overwhelmingly a fantasy rather than anything supported by any evidence at all.

There are more cases of unarmed 'good guys' stopped shooters than of armed ones.

There have been several towns in the US that have passed ordinances requiring gun ownership.   In those towns violent crime decreased immediately.  Why?  Because criminals aren't going to rob, molest, rape, etc... people they know are armed and will defend themselves when they know that unarmed people are nearby.  They go where their chances of finding someone who is unable to defend themselves is the greatest, if they have even a half a brain.  Most criminals aren't very smart, but it doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to realize that unarmed people are much easier to victimize than armed people, and that the the likelihood of getting shot and killed is much greater if the supposed victim is armed. 

Do you really think that last sentence is a good argument when the vast majority of people have been educated to believe that to own a gun is dangerous to their own safety so they don't own a firearm, and if that isn't true the government of their country has made it almost impossible for them to buy a gun even if they want one?  That alone, plus what I said above, is why you see so many people having to bring fists to gun fights.   Only an idiot would rather get into a gun fight with his bare hands than when being armed.  It's forced on people, not their first choice.

It's sort of like saying a desert is a much safer place than a coastline because a lot fewer people drown in deserts than in large bodies of water.....  It's a non sequitur.  It's meaningless.